1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, for example, to a finisher device for performing a book binding process such as wrapping binding processes, an image processing apparatus capable of executing image processing configured by a plurality of process steps, and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to now, in a commercialized printing industry, order entries for creating print products (such as magazines, newspapers, catalogues, advertisements, and gravures) from a third party (a customer, or a client) are received in order to create the printed products desired by the client, and the printed products are delivered to the client with a fee received from the client in return. Currently, the commercialized printing industry still uses large-scale printing apparatus such as offset reproduction print machines as the primary reproduction method. In the printing industry, this operation has been carried out by various process steps including original reception, design and layout, comprehensive layout (presentation made by printer outputs), revision (layout correction and color correction), proof print, layout paper creation, printing, post-treatment process, and delivery.
Meanwhile, in recent years, along with the achievement of a high speed and a high image quality of an electrophotographic printing apparatus or an inkjet printing apparatus, a market has developed which is called “print on demand” (hereinafter, expressed as POD) for providing quick delivery of printed products. The POD does not use any large-scale apparatus or system. The POD is designed for a job with a relatively small number of lots as compared with a job processed by a printing apparatus.
In the POD market, instead of using the above-mentioned large-scale printing machine or system, for example, a digital image process device such as a digital copying machine or a digital multifunction machine is utilized to a maximum extent in order to realize digital print with use of electronic data to produce the merchandise. In such a POD market, as compared to the past printing industry, digitalization is advanced and computerized management and control prevail.
A known technology of using a finisher device connected to other image processing apparatus generally refers to a dispersed paper-discharging process technology using a plurality of finisher devices. The dispersed paper-discharging process technology is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-29482, titled “Image output management apparatus, image forming apparatus, paper discharging process apparatus, image processing system, image processing method, recording medium, and program”. With this technology, a user selects a device for performing the dispersed paper-discharging process among finisher devices connected to each other on a network and the print job is then executed.
However, according to the above-described related-art technology, the finisher device is selected as a dispersion target by the user in advance and the execution of the dispersed paper-discharging process needs to be instructed. So any change cannot be made after the print job process has started. For this reason, once the print job is started, the time consumed for the job process is longer than expected. Even when the print operation is behind schedule, unless the job execution itself is terminated, the change in job operational instructions cannot be made to increase the operational process speed through job dispersion and job alternation of the finishing process or the like, which leads to a problem. In addition, another problem occurs in the following situation. The image processing apparatus in use is scheduled to perform the next print job, but even when the time at which the next print job is performed passes, no measures can be adopted until the print job currently being processed is finished.
Furthermore, when an error occurs such as shortage of staples of a stapler and the process stops, there is also a problem in that the process is suspended until the error is eliminated.
The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and the invention provides a method of causing one or plural external devices connected to a network to accept job dispersion or job alternation of the operational burden even when the process is being performed, to improve the work efficiency of the entire system and also causing the external device having accepted the job dispersion or job alternation to execute the process based on the content of the original setting.
Also, the present invention can provide a construction to obtain a performance, a use condition, and a work schedule of the external device connected via the network to the image processing apparatus. With this construction, even after the print process is started, it is possible to automatically judge whether or not the work efficiency should be improved by way of the job alternation to cause other device to execute the process on the basis of the above-mentioned information and whether or not the improvement of the work efficiency can be actually achieved. The present invention can further improve the work efficiency by causing the external device connected to the network to perform the process allocated through the job dispersion or job alternation on the basis of the judgment of the image processing apparatus.
In addition, the present invention provides a construction where an output destination of the print job is changed to another paper discharge section from a predetermined paper discharge section (for example, a paper discharge section for the book binding process) depending on the process condition while the image processing apparatus is executing the print job in which the book binding print process is specified. With this configuration, after the print job being processed is printed out, a postprint process can be started by using a postprint process device different from the image processing apparatus, thereby further improving the work efficiency.
Furthermore, the present invention provides a construction where even after the job dispersion or job alternation process is started from the image processing apparatus to an arbitrary external device connected to the network at an arbitrary time, the system shows a user a message that the job alternation or dispersion process is performed, a name of the external device for performing the job alternation or dispersion process or a flow to the process allocated through the job dispersion or job alternation, or a flow to perform the job alternation or dispersion process. With this construction, the user is less likely to make an operational error during the work.
Moreover, the present invention provides a construction where even when the finisher device installed in the image processing apparatus has any error or failure, the work efficiency of the entire system can be improved without stopping the print job as an error by causing one or plural nearline finisher devices connected to the network to alternately perform the work.